opinion

(This piece by Steve Bhaerman is posted at www.afterdowningstreet.org alongside articles by Gore Vidal and a flood of news items on impeachment. It's good to see that David Swanson is opening the door for this discussion. Thanks Joe, for sending it in. -r.)

...It's a bit of a mixed feeling to realize that millions and millions of people who didn't get this distinction two, four or six years ago now understand that the "political' issues we now face aren't about right and left, they're about right and wrong. On one hand, what took you so long? On the other, thank God and welcome aboard.

Someone has stated here that the Bill O'Reilly poll is over, but it seems to still be running, so if you haven't voted on whether Charlie Sheen will hurt his career by narrating Loose Change Final Cut, here's the poll. Remember to take a deep breath, and get quickly in and out, before you vomit:

Oh, well , if you can't beat them, don't join them, beat them some more!

So I'm looking out for other polls related to 9/11 truth and I just found this one. 34 people have voted and the poll stops at a thousand votes, so what do you say, should we stop this poll right now? I think it's fair to flood it, afterall it's a popularitycontest. Here it is:

Entertainment: Will rosie O'Donnell still have her job after her contract is up? (I'll admit the question is not really saying anything, unless you think they are implying she will be fired or not renewed)

The corporate media have launched desperate attempt to eliminate all discussions about the official body of evidence related to the events of 9/11. Just watch how they are trying frantically to get Rosie O’Donnell fired from ABC’s The View. Also think back to when the media launched a broad based attack against the character of Charlie Sheen for daring to publicly question the official story of 9/11. Rosie, however, is a much greater problem for the criminals in the media. She is on a daily network TV program with a large audience that doesn’t even know that questions and disturbing facts about 9/11 exist.

Let’s understand one thing: the 9/11 truth movement is doing nothing but growing. People who have been exposed to the actual evidence and understand the ramifications of what it reveals are not waking up one morning and suddenly deciding that they believe the official story. The dynamic works like this: those who are not aware of the evidence believe the official story. Once they start poking around they realize that the official story about the attacks could not possibly be true, and they discover the plethora of evidence hidden and misrepresented by the Bush administration, the 9/11 Commission and the corporate media. 9/11 truthers are not suddenly coming across new information that caused them to suddenly believe the official story. It’s a one way flow. The evidence speaks for itself.

Could that last statement possibly explain why the media are trying so desperately to quash any discussion about 9/11 or destroy the credibility of anyone who dares to try to raise the topic? You can bet that it is! But there is another angle here as well. The media are no longer trying to protect the insiders of the Bush administration whose involvement in the events and cover up of the evidence is implicated by so much that has been uncovered. This time around they are protecting themselves. Let’s be real here. With every day a liar continues to lie it becomes more difficult to undo, explain, correct or justify that lie. This is the position in which the corporate media find themselves right now.

The events of 9/11 pose a unique problem for the criminal corporate media. For generations, the media have kept Americans in the dark about topics like war, taxation, the monetary system, America’s involvement in atrocities in the world, domestic assassinations, science, health, and our environment. Yet, 9/11 is a topic that hits home like no other. Understand that this is not theory, this is provable...

Across the spectrum of the right wing echo chamber, they are taking a new approach to dealing with the people who are the most effective at getting out the truth. They call them crazy, inappropriate, unethical, out of control...

Joe Scarborough takes pot shots at Barbara Walters for allowing Rosie to have a voice. He asks, "How sad has Barbara Walters become. Why has she allowed Rosie O'Donnell to destroy her once great reputation?" ...

Although labeling O'Donnell's comments as "unhinged ravings", Scarborough and his right hand men do not debate or counter what she is actually saying but instead choose to attack and attempt to end the career of an elderly woman who was reporting meaningful and insightful news items while they were still in college...

These hacks go after Rosie and Barbara Walters, really saying horrible things about Walters, clearly trying to do all they can to get Rosie fired. Make that silenced.

The fact is, Rosie has brought 600,000 new viewers to the VIEW...

Joe Scarborough went after Rosie O'Donnell just as viciously because she spoke the widely repeated questions of the 9/11 Truth movement, asking how anyone could explain the collapse of the third WTC tower, the one that was not hit by a hijacked jet...

I never thought I'd say this, but Rosie O'Donnell is a great American.

The 45-year-old stand-up comedian and actress, who has been the outspoken co-host and moderator of ABC's popular daytime chat show "The View" for the past six months, has gone from stupidly off-color to vividly shining moral Technicolor in that same span.

Eschewing the tabloid-chattering controversy of her embarrassingly racist "ching chong" representation of Chinese people last December, O'Donnell has, in my mind, culturally redeemed herself with her clear-eyed commentary on the U.S. escalation to war with Iran and her sudden and comprehensive endorsement of the 9-11 truth movement.

As a preface, I must say I am absolutely itching to receive my copy of David Ray Griffin's new book in the mail. Popular Mechanics' role as an arm of propaganda is rearing its ugly head again. Now that Rosie has come forward, along comes Popular Mechanics to "rebut" her. Most of the media is buying in to the PM rebuttal. For example, in response to Rosie's "Bring on a structural engineer!", one news article says: "But what Rosie and the conspiracy theorists overlook is that Popular Mechanics Magazine contacted many experts and have done a thorough investigation that answers the theorists' questions."

On the Randi Rhodes (Air America) 9/11 forum, a poster by the name of "Ohio Girl" made the following comment:

"Oh gosh. This again!!! I think in the end, people will believe what they CHOOSE to believe. I read a very interesting article in popular mechanics that debunked several of the theories. I would expect Popular Mechanics to be pretty unbiased."

There was yet another great segment for liberals on Hannity & Colmes Friday night, March 23, 2007. Alan Colmes and News Hounds top dog and radio talk show host Leslie Marshall provided the perfect response to attacks from Sean Hannity and Michael Reagan against Charlie Sheen over his narration in a “9/11 conspiracy” film. Marshall and Colmes confronted Hannity and Reagan for attacking Sheen with personal insults rather than debating the issues at hand. Neither Hannity nor Reagan had a counterargument, other than to level more attacks at Sheen and the left. The result, in my view, was that Hannity and Reagan were exposed as thuggish oafs while Marshall and Colmes sounded the voices of reason. With video.

Hannity, during a teaser at the beginning of the program said, “The hopelessly confused actor is going to narrate a film full of his wild-eyed conspiracy theories.” Can you imagine Alan Colmes saying before a segment about, say, Ann Coulter, “The hopelessly malicious columnist will offer more of her crackpot theories in an upcoming book?” I can’t. On FOX News, the conservatives do the attacking, often while complaining about the rhetoric of the left.

At the beginning of the actual discussion, Hannity played a clip of Sheen calmly talking about why he doesn’t believe the official explanation of 9/11. Hannity said, “That was Charlie Sheen, ranting like a lunatic.”

Reagan didn’t waste a moment getting in a slur of his own. “The apple does not fall far from the very tree at all, with Martin Sheen being his father.”

In synch with the conservatives, the screen chyron read, “CHARLIE SHEEN’S 9/11 CONSPIRACY RANT HEADED TO THE BIG SCREEN.”

There was a time, not long ago, when daring to question the official account of 9/11 was risky business. One was almost guaranteed to be attacked as a "crazy person" or a "traitor" or a "terrorist sympathizer." Times have changed. At this point, less than 20% of the population believes they were given the full truth regarding 9/11. Logically one might ask: "Why is that?"

It wasn't for lack of trying that the government failed in its propaganda campaign. It wasn't for lack of "helping hands" in the mainstream media. (Though even that support has begun to fall apart.) No, it was one thing and one thing only that caused hundreds of millions of American citizens to openly question the official account of 9/11; the evidence.

No way World Trade Center Towers were brought down simply from planes, jet fuel and fire

by Graeme MacQueen

Sometime in late 2005 I had a conversation -- quite a heated one, actually -- with an American dissident who said that 9/11 was obviously carried out by the U.S. government. I expressed some scepticism about this and he said that I obviously hadn’t done my homework and didn’t know the first thing about the issue. I realized after that conversation that he was actually right. I’d tinkered with the issue by reading long pieces on the internet late at night but I hadn’t really done my homework. Being, I guess, a scholarly sort of guy, and having by this time taken early retirement so that I could work for peace and justice in whatever way I wished, I ordered some the leading books, downloaded key articles, and set to work.

One of the first of many powerful passages in Rajiv Chandrasekaran's book about the protected area that has housed the Coalition soldiers during the Iraq War, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone, is that of the U.S. soldiers' mess hall.

The food—Fruit Loops and crisply fried bacon—was American; the décor—stackable chairs and glass covered buffet tables—was American. And the story that made the U.S. presence there make sense, that was American too:

A mural of the World Trade Center adorned one of the entrances. The Twin Towers were framed within the outstretched wings of a bald eagle. Each branch of the U.S. military—the army, air force, marines and navy—had its seal on a different corner of the mural. In the middle were the logos of the New York City Police and Fire departments, and atop the towers were the words THANK GOD FOR THE COALITION FORCES & FREEDOM FIGHTERS AT HOME AND ABROAD.

“Former” CIA agent Robert Baer has recently weighed in with his own assessment of how we should view Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's recent testimony (see "Why KSM's Confession Rings False" ).

In Baer's view, we should take it with a grain of salt. He further hints that, in the light of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's current lack of gravitas and obvious reliability as a witness, we should perhaps look to the contributions of other agents and state actors in our evolving understanding of the dynamics of al Qaeda. And though he now seeks to minimize the role of KSM in the Pearl killing - Baer considers him, as he has now learned through the proverbial grapevine, as more of a standby eyewitness than as an actual hands-on participant - Baer neglects to inform his readers of his own personal role in Daniel Pearl's investigation, a role that could arguably be said to have set Pearl directly on the course toward his tragic fate.

Nevertheless, since Baer did insinuate himself personally into the Pearl legend, as of his September 30, 2002 revelation to UPI, one would expect that he would - at least someday - have to give a more detailed description of the nature of his "joint investigation" of the 9/11 mastermind with Daniel Pearl - that is, unless it can be shown that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is not "all that" in the end. As Baer seems to be suggesting in his recent Time magazine piece, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is damaged goods, a thoroughly brain-addled and water-boarded "clown" from whom little of any reliable intelligence value may be wrung.

When Baer had first offered up the account of his personal role in Daniel Pearl's investigation, many of the discrepancies surrounding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had yet to fully disseminate among some of the more discerning members of the public. Yet with the 9/11 mastermind officially in custody, Baer now strongly hints that perhaps we should direct our lingering questions elsewhere, to the roles of other actors, and different horizons.

And thus does Baer continue to postpone his own accounting with the historical record, which is provided below...

(The article "Why the Left Should Not Be Hostile to 9/11 Truth Efforts" by David Slesinger is prominently featured on the Antiwar League homepage. Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come. -r.)

Editor's note: Antiwar League is posting this article because it makes important points for the whole antiwar movement. Regardless of what particular theory about the events of September 11 you subscribe to, it is important to put aside our differences and work for a common goal we can all agree on. There must be a new investigation, a full and truthful investigation, unimpeded by secrecy and conflict of interest.

On 11 September 2001, I sat with a Palestinian family in the living room of their home in Aqaba, Jordan and watched subdued as planes struck US landmarks. It wasn’t long before the Saudi rebel Osama bin Laden was fingered as the culprit. That the corporate media had so quickly named a responsible party was suspicious. My suspicion was further aroused when, days later, I spoke with a friend who trained pilots for Royal Jordanian Airlines. The captain claimed that flight 93 had not crashed; it had been shot down. To adduce his point he pointed out how there were no large chunks of fuselage among the wreckage and that the wreckage was scattered over too wide an area. Assuming his facts were true, then the media portrayal of the 9-11 Gestalt was immediately questionable.

Reports quickly surfaced about Israelis celebrating during the attack, that no Arabs were on the planes, that onboard cell phones could not function under those circumstances, that US air force interceptor planes had taken inordinately long to scramble, that the WTC buildings’ owner had massively insured the buildings for a terrorist attack, that only a demolition could collapse the buildings in such a manner, that jet fuel did not burn hot enough to melt steel, that the president sat with school children apparently unfazed by the news of the attack, and so on. True or not, it was no wonder that people became engaged in a movement to determine what happened on 9-11.

How does one arrive at the “truth”?

Certainly not through close-mindedness. Would one be likely to arrive at the “truth” if he is unwilling to consider all the evidence? Open-minded skepticism -- the willingness to consider many views skeptically -- seems a logical formula by which to arrive at the truth. Open-minded skepticism includes critical appraisal of facts, pertinent literature, and hypotheses in reaching one’s own conclusions. Of course, hashing one’s conclusions over with others helps to winnow out wrong conclusions and refine incongruencies. Consequently, I have maintained an open-mindedness to information emerging from 9-11 but with requisite skepticism. There was no way that I could, with limited resources and at great distance, check on the mass of information and evidence that had to be sifted through to conclude anything definite. I could only conjecture about isolated pieces of information.